Weihnachten mit den Hesselbachs - Weihnachts-Special
Today, the Hesselbachs invite you to drink mulled wine.
"Kall, mei Drobbe!" Do you remember Mama Hesselbach's legendary exclamation? Do you still recall the radio and television stories about the Hesselbach company "somewhere in Hesse"?
The Frankfurt-born Jo van Nelsen, well-known on all German cabaret stages, has unearthed two wonderful, now only available as second-hand books: "Babba" and "Mamma", written in 1967 by Wolf Schmidt, the creator and unforgettable performer of Babba Hesselbach, who transformed his favorite episodes into independent stories. Van Nelsen now reads from them: Indulging in quirky entanglements and subtle jabs at politics, which remarkably still hit the mark today.
Thanks to van Nelsen's universally acclaimed performance art, the audience discovers Wolf Schmidt, a veteran of radio and television, for the first time as an ironically distant novelist who knows how to illustrate the universal truths in the personal catastrophes of a Hessian middle-class family and condense the absurdities of everyday life into cabaret-like dramas. Schmidt's wit, as well as his deeply felt commitment to democracy and humanity, rightfully place him alongside the second great Hessian dialect poet, Friedrich Stoltze.
The Hesselbachs were Germany's first television family, whose series truly dominated the streets with viewership ratings of up to 94 percent. Because that's what "blockbusters" were once called here - street sweepers. But that was a time when people still got upset about a "Dreckrändsche" and a "Röhrender Hirsch" adorned the living room. Van Nelsen received a similar reception when he launched the Hesselbach reading series in 2006 at the Stalburg Theater, Frankfurt, where he read to a sold-out audience every first Sunday of the month for over 3 years.
Let yourself be taken into the serene and contemplative Hesselbach universe - and if you close your eyes, you will meet them all again: Babba and Mamma Hesselbach, sons Willi and Peter, daughter Heidi, the Swabian accountant Münzenberger, chief secretary Fräulein Sauerberg, cleaning lady Frau Siebenhals, apprentice Rudi, and all the other unforgettable characters of the hit series "The Hesselbachs".
However, if you keep your eyes open, you will only see one person: Jo van Nelsen. But listening and watching him play everyone and everything one after another, that is an experience you shouldn't miss!